St Andrew's Pre-School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children are extremely happy, content and settled. They are very highly motivated and eager to join in with the stimulating and exciting activities and use the resources, enabling them to become particularly strong learners. For example, they take enormous delight in learning about the wildlife within their local environment. They learn about different birds and use books to further stimulate their knowledge.

Children are tremendously caring and supportive of each other. They learn to identify when their friends are feeling sad and want to help make them happy. Children make outstanding use of the self-regulation area, exploring their own feelings in an exceptional, inviting area. Staff are exceedingly skilled at helping children understand and manage their feelings. Children's self-esteem is constantly boosted as they receive praise for their achievements, behaviour and manners.

The outstanding quality of teaching ensures that staff include every child in all activities, regardless of their stage of development. Every child's uniqueness is valued as a result of the staff's expert knowledge and understanding of all children's abilities and development. The pre-school uses additional funding astutely to address gaps in learning and help children to catch up quickly. Children are superbly prepared to develop skills for future learning and school.

What does the early years setting do well and what does it need to do better?

• Staff carry out extremely in-depth and ongoing assessments when children join the pre-school. These identify any early concerns about a child's development. Early interventions are immediately implemented to help children quickly catch up.
• Staff show a high level of enthusiasm and commitment to build on their skills and knowledge. As a result, children's learning opportunities and outcomes are further enhanced by highly qualified and committed staff. They consistently follow the children's lead, actively encouraging them to think, investigate and experiment. Staff teach early literacy and mathematical concepts. For example, children work with staff and their peers to count freely and compare size and shape. In the writing area, children practise making marks when writing their own names.
• Children's personal, social and emotional development is extremely well supported by staff. Staff recognise that some children have had no contact with others during the COVID-19 pandemic and may take longer to settle. Children show high levels of independence. For example, they set the table for snack, select their own resources, and get themselves dressed for outdoor play. Children eagerly explore a wide range of books. They are keen to share favourite books with adults. They turn pages together, talk about the story, and use their imagination to further extend their literacy.
• Children expertly follow and communicate instructions to each other and staff, enabling them to readily complete and enjoy tasks. They enjoy vast opportunities to be confident, self-motivated and physically active. For example, they learn to ride bikes, propel scooters, spin hoops and play ball games. Staff skilfully question children to encourage them to think and work out ideas for themselves.
• Children with disadvantaged backgrounds and with special educational needs and/or disabilities receive exceptional support. Staff work tirelessly with external professionals to ensure children have the best outcomes. As a result, all children make outstanding progress and are ready for their next stage in learning.
• Partnerships with parents are exemplary. Parents comment that they feel exceptionally welcome and have a comprehensive understanding of their child's learning and development. For example, parents received comprehensive home-learning packs and were invited to daily online meetings during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Staff truly value the manager always being available to help and being genuinely concerned about their well-being. They have access to a wide range of excellent training, which has a positive impact on children's learning.
• The manager is truly inspirational. She continually reflects on, evaluates and reviews everything that she and the staff do. The manager inspires and motivates children, their parents and the staff team to achieve the best they can. She sets exceptionally high standards for herself. The highly reflective self-evaluation and ambitious targets drive improvement and raise the quality of care and education for the children.